he Chicago Bulls and Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg are negotiating a five-year contract with the expectation a deal will be finalized by the middle of next week, reports ESPN’s Andy Katz and Nick Friedell.

Hoiberg would replace Tom Thibodeau, whom the Bills fired after five seasons on Thursday. Thibodeau still had two years and $9 million remaining on his contract when Chicago cut ties with him.

Throughout persistent rumors of friction between Thibodeau and the Bulls’ front office, Hoiberg has been linked to the team’s head coach position. ESPN’s report said contract language was still being finalized, but multiple Bulls sources feel the deal is “all but complete.”

In five seasons at Iowa State, Hoiberg’s Cyclones have amassed a 115–56 record and appeared in four NCAA tournaments. Iowa State, a No. 3 seed in the 2015 NCAA tournament, lost to the University of Alabama–Birmingham in the round of 64.

Chicago Bulls Jimmy Butler has become far less interested in signing a 5yr/$90m max deal the Bulls are expected to present him on July 1. Butler agency could seek a short term deal making him an unrestricted free agent in 2017. Butler has become increasingly interested in signing a potential Los Angeles Lakers offer sheet.

As the NBA’s salary cap is set to dramatically rise beginning with the 2016-17 season, Butler has become far less interested in locking himself into the five-year, $90 million-plus deal the Bulls are expected to present him on July 1, league sources said.

challenge to retaining Butler. As a restricted free agent, the Bulls have matching rights on any offer sheet. Nevertheless, Chicago could be faced with Butler’s agents at Relativity Media, Happy Walters and Steve McCaskill, loading up a short-term offer sheet that includes a trade kicker and the potential loss of Butler to unrestricted free agency in 2017.

It is understandable why Chicago wants Butler locked into a five-year, $90 million max extension under the current salary structure, but that appears to be a deal Butler plans to pass on.

The Bulls understand that Butler had the staying power to turn down a four-year, $44 million extension (four-year, $48 million would’ve gotten the Bulls a deal, sources said)

If there’s a player with the conviction to risk playing out the 2015-16 season for his $4.4 million qualifying offer and become an unrestricted free agent in 2016, it could be Butler. Nevertheless, that’ll be considered a long shot in the process.

^ that's expected that players want short-term contracts due to the coming cap spike. Then let's match a shorter contract I hope Butler realizes that CHI is in a better shape to contend than LA. Also, can he endure the media scrutiny in L.A.? He should think about it very well. CHI is the better choice for now.

On another note, Rose, Gibson and Mirotic's contracts will end by 2017.

i think the only way to upgrade is to trade Gasol for another quality player/s. Since Gasol is not built for a running offense, we should find a taker. At 7.4M/year his contract is not that damaging, considering he could still produce.

Gasol does still have his low-post skills and bball iq as selling points. He could also serve as a mentor to young guns of other teams. But what could I expect from our front office?

LeBron James Decapitates Haters
10:57a ETPosted by Clay Travis
Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE
Last night the most desperate LeBron James haters -- the Michael Jordan fanboys who refuse to believe that anything or anyone can ever compete with the hero of their childhood -- went to bed clutching their 1992 Air Jordan tennis shoes while quietly whimpering. This morning they'll walk past their unopened Wheaties boxes from 1994 and their Starting Lineup figurines from 1991 -- never opened either! -- before they log back on to Twitter and Facebook and wage their anti-LeBron campaign anew. They're the sports equivalents of the Iraqi information minister, denying an invasion that's happening right before their very eyes.
You know who I'm talking about because no matter who you are they are peppering your Facebook and Twitter feed with their desperate nuggets of disinformation.
Right now we are all witnessing the greatest individual performance in the history of basketball and some people still hate LeBron so much they're criticizing him for winning with the NBA equivalent of four dudes you wouldn't even pick for your team in a pick-up game at the Y. (There isn't a single YMCA in the country where Matthew Dellavedova would be the first pick. Not one.)
You see their posts: "Yeah, but he's missing too many shots."
Who do you want taking more shots then? Iman Shumpert? J.R. "I might just go ahead and pull up from halfcourt" Smith? Tristan "I haven't made a shot from beyond three feet in my entire life" Thompson? Hell, LeBron got James Jones seven points last night and I'm not even sure Jones can dribble the basketball anymore. I was wondering how James Jones got any minutes at all, but did you see Mike Miller on that floor last night? Mike Miller looks like he's an actual zombie from "The Walking Dead." Dude can't even run anymore and LeBron's got him playing in the NBA finals.
Cleveland has so few offensive weapons right now that even Dellavedova has to force shots. He's running around throwing up running one handers like he's playing a game of horse against a bunch of unathletic Australians back home in Canberra.
So spare me the LeBron's taking too many shots argument.
"All I care about is 6-0 in the finals," the anti-LeBron crew will social media you to death with.
So you're just going to forget about Jordan's 1-2 against the Pistons in the eastern conference finals? Or that Orlando Magic second round elimination in 1995? How about the fact that when he left the Bulls to go play baseball in 1994 they were still good enough to finish third overall in the eastern conference and take the New York Knicks, the team that would lose the title in seven games to the Houston Rockets, to seven games? Would these Cavs without LeBron even make the playoffs in the east? Nope. You're just going to pretend those Wizards years didn't ever happen too, aren't you?
I don't blame you for that.
But that's not the end of the LeBron haters you'll see on social media.
"He complains too much about calls," they'll say.
You don't remember Jordan getting every call on earth? If you breathed on him too hard, Jordan got a trip to the line. Some games it seems like LeBron could get murdered on the court and the NBA officials, who double as WWE officials in the off season, would miss it.
LeBron: "He just stabbed me with a bowie knife on that lay up attempt!"
NBA ref: "All ball."
LeBron is such a physical freak that he gets fouled on virtually every play. Watch him go to the basket, the guy gets more contact than Lil' Kim backstage at the Grammys.
"I don't like his "Chosen One," tattoo," some will say.
Oh, so now we critique players based on their tattoos? Really, this is what you're going with? This is the reason you can't enjoy his game/
"I don't like his body language on the court."
His body language? I'd be laughing harder if people weren't actually saying this all over Twitter and Facebook. Your body language would be bad too if you were carrying your broke *** team up and down the court for 46 minutes -- or more -- in the NBA finals.
"The decision..."
Stop, just stop. Yes, that was hamhanded and dumb, but it should have been over after a year. Everyone forgets that decision special raised millions of dollars for charity. And four years later LeBron totally rewrote the script with his brilliant essay about returning to Cleveland, proving that he'd grown and learned a great deal in the intervening years. In the process, LeBron became the first person in the history of the universe to voluntarily leave Miami for Cleveland. That makes him a saint in my book.
You have to work so hard to dislike LeBron that these are the hater insults that are left to the legion of LeBron despisers. I mean, the dude has never been in trouble off the court. He appears to be a pretty decent dad, his teammates, by and large, seem to enjoy playing with him. So far as we know, unlike Jordan, he's never punched any of his teammates in practice. (Hello, Steve Kerr, opposing coach on the finals sideline). Hating LeBron is the very definition of trying too hard, the perfect representation for why our hater generation is so played out.
Name me one other person who is unquestionably the best in the world at his chosen profession and gets this much hate?
You can't.
Which is disappointing because some of y'all hate LeBron so much that you're willing to not enjoy the greatest individual finals performance in the history of the game. LeBron may or may not lead his team to the title this year, but the struggle is real, the journey is without parallel in the annals of basketball, how can you give up the enjoyment of this ride because you don't like a dude's body language on the court?
You know who you sound like with all these complaints? A psychotic ex-girlfriend. Y'all need to be committed to the basketball insane asylum. Where you can sit in a strait jacket with your tongue hanging out and look at your poster of Jordan dunking from the free throw line -- newsflash, he stepped inside the line before he took off -- while you roll around on the floor replaying the final shot Jordan made to beat the Utah Jazz in 1998. (Newsflash, before he made that basket Jordan missed 20 shots; he finished 15-35 with one assist and one rebound). Time has a way of making us forget any flaws. If you don't believe me, ask your parents, who actually have fond memories of their trip to Disney World with you in 1984. Thirty years ago they wanted to kill you by the end of that "vacation."
Because here's my ultimate point that the haters don't seem to comprehend: LeBron being good doesn't make Jordan bad. You can enjoy both. Why you gotta hate LeBron to feel better about Jordan? Because let's be honest, despite your best memories, Jordan wasn't perfect. After all, he couldn't stop your parents from getting divorced, could he? (Okay, that was probably a low blow). But my point is simple, you're not in love with Jordan so much as you're in love with your memories of Jordan from your childhood. That's all well and good, but it's time to stop acting like children, you're grown *** men now.
LeBron James is the best basketball player in the world doing something that none of us thought was possible.
And right now we're all witnesses.
Even, much to their chagrin, those who continue to hate him for no reason at all.

Jimmy Butler’s heart is still in Tomball, Texas – population 11,000 and change.

Everything else about the Bulls two-guard? That went Hollywood sometime back in the 2013-14 season when he started a friendship with actor Mark Wahlberg, and soon after started realizing that the idea he was simply playing on Derrick Rose’s team was not an image he was willing to embrace.

Former head coach Tom Thibodeau, as well as his staff, privately had their concerns about Butler and Rose co-existing back in training camp because of their alpha male personalities. And by midseason, tired of seeing the likes of Rose and Joakim Noah get to sit out practices and certain drills under the care of director of sports performance, Jen Swanson, Butler, and to a certain extent Pau Gasol, had some building animosity, according to multiple sources.

That was on full display by Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, in which Butler stopped looking Rose’s way when given the ball, and Rose seemed to fade into being an angry bystander.

So of course it’s not a surprise that Butler will now make life as difficult as he can on his organization, looking to get a short-term deal and get to the freedom of being an unrestricted free agent as quickly as possible, leaving the Bulls in a game of chicken in which they must decide if they will block that by offering a maximum qualifying offer.

“Jimmy’s the most confident guy [on this team], no doubt,’’ Taj Gibson said late in the season, when asked about the “aw shucks’’ image that Butler likes to portray. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s full of confidence.’’

Welcome to Chicago, Fred Hoiberg, where Job 1 will be fixing the relationship between Rose and Butler before it’s beyond repair.